Colu, a Blockchain technology company and creator of a wallet app for digital, localized currencies, announced their plans for a crowdsale for its Colu Local Network token (CLN). Colu is currently on track to close a token pre-sale with financial backing from contributors including Spark Capital, Aleph VC, Tom Glocer former CEO of Thomson Reuters, and renowned behavioral economics expert Professor Dan Ariely, who will also join Colu as the company’s Chief Behavioral Officer. Also joining the company as an adviser is Bradley Tusk, serial entrepreneur and Uber’s political strategist
Colu’s popular digital wallet app transforms local economies by connecting local users and merchants to a Blockchain-based system that enables easy and secure payments. The company has already grown thriving user communities in four local economies in the UK and Israel and facilitates over 50,000 financial transactions per month.
The CLN token will enable a host of new utilities. On a larger scale, the CLN will empower local economies by connecting them to a global network of value. The CLN represents an index value of the community currencies issued on the network. This enables communities to raise capital and provides new currencies in local markets with instant liquidity. Additionally, the CLN token will support an ecosystem of services added over time for local banking and financial needs such as currency exchange, payments, lending services and KYC. The CLN token will be used to pay for such services on the Colu network.
Residents can own community currencies, allowing the entire community to bootstrap its local economy. For the consumer, this acts as an incentive to buy locally while reinvest back in business they believe in. For the business owner, this circulation helps to reduce unnecessary fees, increase cash flow, and receive financial services via the Colu network.
Colu has garnered significant attention across the industry for its unique model and value proposition for local economies. The company has already raised $12 million from traditional venture capital investors with the goal of using Blockchain to tackle real world challenges starting with local economies and the monetary systems that power their growth. The token sale will bolster the company’s efforts to expand to new communities, with plans to expand to new countries in the near term.
Dan Ariely, Chief Behavioral Officer at Colu:
“Colu is leveling the playing field between local communities and larger institutions, giving them the opportunity to accelerate their growth while generating cooperation built on mutual trust and shared successes.”
Amos Meiri, CEO and co-founder of Colu:
“This token sale highlights the global demand for new financial solutions that enable anyone to get in on the ground floor of a big idea. The Colu Local Network is about taking part in your local economy and helping it grow. We’re letting people put their money where their community is by making Blockchain-based assets more accessible and by providing tools to help them onboard to a local payment network.”
Eden Shochat, Equal Partner at Aleph VC:
“Colu’s technology is fostering a new decentralized financial system that will redistribute power back to the local economies by allowing individuals and businesses to take control of their own finances without middlemen,” said Eden Shochat, Equal Partner at Aleph VC. “as a venture capital firm already invested in the company, we are excited to continue putting our money where our mouth is by taking part in this new paradigm of community building from the wallet up.”
Santo Politi, co-founder and General Partner at Spark Capital:
“Colu is building a new payment network for fiat money that will replace clearing companies and payment gateways. Instead of subjecting consumers and businesses to superfluous fees, the Colu network will use cryptocurrencies to distribute the savings back to the network’s stakeholders.”
In order to ensure a fair crowdsale offering, the presale terms state that contributors will be granted the option to receive additional tokens in exchange for four different vesting periods, ranging from between 6 months and three years.
Parties interested in the CLN pre-sale and/or public crowdsale can register here.
Specifics on distribution, allocation, economics and other information can be found in Colu’s whitepaper here.